“How often do you go to the mainland?” asked the Christian Aid Partner from India, on a visit to the UK. It took a moment to realise what he meant. After all, we rarely think of Britain as a small offshore island. More common is the (alleged) 1940s newspaper headline: “Fog in Channel- Continent cut…
Category: The Meeting Place Online Discussion
December 3rd 2020 First Thursday
Summary of the discussion We noted the practice of “Imprisonment for Public Protection” (IPP), in the news recently. IPP was created by the 2003 Criminal Justice Act, implemented since 2005, and used for crimes which do not merit a life sentence, but where the offender is considered to pose a danger to others. After 10…
November First Thursday
November 12th summary of the discussion. Covid was still top of the news “agenda” with the promise of vaccines soon to be available. The costs of some (eg Pfizer) are likely to be high (Astra Zeneca is likely to be cheaper and does not need minus 80 degrees Celsius for storage). Drug companies may reap…
Brexit Debate
Wednesday 21st October: Notes on “The Future of Brexit Britain” With Jonathan Chaplain and Andrew Bradstock, the joint editors. The initiative for the book was the strange silence from the Church of England about the Brexit Referendum- any personal statements made (eg from Bishops) were for Remain, but it was clear that many Anglicans were…
Black Lives Matter (2)
From “BLACK AND BRITISH: A FORGOTTEN HISTORY” BY DAVID OLUSOGA, (pages 491-6) In June 1946 the British Cabinet Manpower Working Party determined that in order to meet her post war target, Britain would need 940,000 additional workers. By the end of the year they had raised their estimate to 1,346,000. To help fill this enormous…
Black Lives Matter
…. “and so do white lives”, someone will instantly reply. Of course they do, but the point is that when some lives have been valued less, justice demands action to redress that inequality. We may applaud the present government’s intention to “level up” the North (even if we question its analysis and proposals), and no-one…
Piketty’s proposals
The last mailing summarised Thomas Piketty’s account of how we got into our present position. This looks at his final chapter, where he puts forward proposals for a better economy and society in the future. He says: “New forms of social ownership will need to be developed, along with new ways of apportioning voting rights…
Thomas Piketty: Capital and Ideology
My Lent reading this year has been nothing explicitly “religious”: it was Thomas Piketty’s new book “Capitalism and Ideology”, published in French last Autumn and translated into English earlier this year. Though not religious or “spiritual” I would argue that it is at least as theological as some other books I was urged to read….
The Chapel congregation
Wymington Chapel has a congregation of about a dozen people, including a small number of children. We meet at 10.00 am on most Sunday mornings During the Coronavirus epidemic, all meetings and services have been suspended until further notice. The Chapel will be open every day from 8.00 am to 6.00 pm for anyone…
For where your Treasure is
“For where your Treasure is….”- a summary of our discussions on “What does the Bible say about Wealth?”: Read More >>